Lovegame
"LoveGame" is an electropop song by American recording artist Lady GaGa from her debut album, The Fame. Produced by RedOne, the track was released as the album's third single in North America and Europe and the fourth single in Australia, New Zealand and Sweden after "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)". "LoveGame" was also released as the fourth single in the United Kingdom, after "Paparazzi". The song was critically appreciated for its catchy tune and the "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" hook. Gaga had explained that the term 'disco stick' is a euphemism for a penis and was inspired by her sexual attraction with a stranger at a night club. Musically carrying the vibe of underground New York discos, the song talks about love, fame and sexuality which was the central theme of the album. "LoveGame" has charted within the top ten in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other European countries. It became Gaga's third consecutive number-one song on Billboard's Pop Songs chart. The New York underground inspired music video for the song, portrayed Gaga dancing through an underground subway station and in a parking lot. The music video was a tribute by Gaga to the New York lifestyle including its glamour, fans and fashion. The video has several qualities of Michael Jackson's "Bad" music video, which also took place in a subway station. In Australia, the music video was banned from being aired at the PG rated time slots because of its sexual content. "LoveGame" has been performed live a number of times by Gaga, including her first headlining The Fame Ball and Monster Ball tours, where she performed it while holding her trademark disco stick in one hand. Writing and Inspiration "LoveGame" was written by Lady Gaga and RedOne who also produced the track. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Gaga explained the meaning of the song and her inspiration behind it, especially for the line "Let's have some fun this beat is sick / I wanna take a ride on your disco stick". She said, "It's another of my very thoughtful metaphors for a cock. I was at a nightclub, and I had quite a sexual crush on somebody, and I said to them, 'I wanna ride on your disco stick'. The next day, I was in the studio, and I wrote the song in about four minutes. When I play the song live, I have an actual stick — it looks like a giant rock-candy pleasuring tool — that lights up. While commenting in regards to the lyrical content of the song "LoveGame," on Australian talk show Rove, Gaga said that she is unrepentant about her "disco stick" metaphor, though it led to a banning of the music video on Network Ten in Australia. She further said, "I don't think disco stick is subtle. It's very clear what that lyric is all about. If anything, I happen to think people are frivolously hard on me. A lot of youth-oriented pop music is much racier than mine. 'Throw me on the floor, take off my clothes, give it to me, baby, let's dirty dance'. All these records are so provocative, but it's the context of what I'm doing that makes people concerned.... It's the music in relation to the visual, in relation to the way I move and the way I articulate the lyrics. But if I wanted to make music to make people sing 'la di da' that would be very boring. Critical Reception Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine commented that the song has cheap lyrics and it painfully enunciates without any resemblance of actual sex appeal. About.com reviewer Ben Norman said that "'LoveGame' continues the siege war tactical beats of previous single 'Just Dance' and assaulting us with clever lyrics like, 'Let's have some fun/This beat is sick/I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.'" The Phoenix music editor Daniel Brockman said that "Gaga ups the ante in terms of catchy song writing and sheer high-in-the-club-banging-to-the-beat abandon." He also commented on the lyrics saying that "'Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick/I wanna take a ride on your disco stick' might be the trashiest-yet-awesomest refrain I’ve heard on a major-label record this year." While reviewing The Fame, BBC said that the song sounded robotic in the line "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick". But it was deemed as brilliant as well as utterly cold which "leaves us awarding Gaga the yearbook title of 'pop star most likely to kill'." Ben Hogwood from MusicOMH.com declared the song as "top notch, diamond-encrusted pop" along with other tracks like "Starstruck" and "Paparazzi" but commented that the lyrics were sometimes odd especially the statement, "I'm on a mission, and it involves some heavy touchin'." Sarah Rodman of The Boston Globe said that the song "has a gutter level quippage with sinuous moves." Priya Elan from The Times was not impressed with the song and called it calculated. Billboard music editor Chris Williams gave the song a positive review, commenting that "It has all the winning ingredients of its predecessors: a radio-friendly, club/electropop feel; a provocative, yet silly enough catchphrase and hook ("Let's have some fun, this beat is sick/I wanna take a ride on your disco stick"); and a dash of '80s synth magic, so the adults can play along. On 'LoveGame Gaga is in it to win it." Music Video The music video of "LoveGame" was directed by Joseph Kahn and premiered on February 13, 2009. The video mainly takes place in a subway station. Several qualities of the video are reminiscent to Michael Jackson's "Bad" music video, which also took place in a subway station. Although the video was shot in Los Angeles in January 2009 alongside with the music video for "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)", it has a New York City setting. The video faced censorship troubles in Australia where it was rated M by Network Ten due to suggestive video footage involving bondage and sexual acts. The channel demanded to be provided with an edited version of the video which would not violate censorship rules. Video Hits refused to air the video in its G and PG rated time slots. They cited "numerous sexual references both visually and lyrically" as the reason they could not create a child-friendly edit without bleeping the repeated hook "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick". Australian programs like Rage and cable networks Channel V and MTV aired the video in its original form. The video also faced a ban from MTV Arabia citing the same reason as Australia. Since it was very rare to ban videos in MTV, head of MTV Arabia Samer al Marzouki commented, "We represent the young generation’s mentality and culture so we can’t play something that conflicts with that. If they can’t watch something comfortably with their brother, sisters or friends then we will not play it." In the U.S., VH1 and MTV played an edited version that removed almost all scenes of Gaga naked, and blurred the label on a bottle of alcohol one of the dancers holds. No lyrics were changed. The video for "LoveGame" premiered in the UK on 13 August at 7pm on 4Music. "This is all part of a movement. My artistry is much deeper than fashion or anything like that. I love pop music, and I want to bring it back. ... People are truly hungry for this. They generally miss the '90s and the superfans flooding Times Square, crying and wailing and doing anything to see the fingernail of a star. I want that back, and 'LoveGame' video is just another move towards that. 'LoveGame' is a genuine New York lifestyle video. It's got that feeling of 'gay, black New York,' of inclusion and glamour," ... I wanted to really bring forth the girl that I was four years ago, and I wanted to put it in the setting of the underground subway. I worked with Joseph Kahn, and he did an amazing job. He didn't just capture the fashion; he captured the artist."52 The video starts with the heading "Streamline presents" and three men moving through Times Square. They open a man-hole cover on which "Haus of Gaga" is written. Gaga is then shown naked with blue and purple paint and glitter on her body, frolicking with two men who have the words "Love" and "Fame" shaved into their heads. The scene shifts to a subway where Gaga starts singing in a grey-white leotard with a hood. She carries her trademark 'disco stick' and wears chain-linked glasses. The chorus starts with Gaga and her dancers progressing through the subway and dancing down a staircase. Her trademark dogs, two harlequin Great Danes, are also shown on top of the staircase. The video shifts to a train where the second verse takes place amidst choreographed dance routines and Gaga wearing a black jacket. The group move on to a car-park. Gaga is then shown with the two men again and enters a ticket booth with an inspector. This next scene shows Gaga in make-shift kissing and caressing. As the camera pans from right to left the inspector changes from a man to woman in each frame. The final scene incorporates Gaga in a choreographed dance routine with her crew of backup dancers. The video comes to an end as Gaga and her dancers hold their groins as they gesture towards the camera. Gaga spoke to Entertainment Weekly during the Behind the Scenes of the shoot regarding what she thought about the video and the development of it including the new creative measures undertaken: "I wanted to have that big giant dance video moment, I wanted it to be plastic, beautiful, gorgeous, sweaty, tar on the floor, bad-ass boys, but when you got close, the look in everybody's eyes was fucking honest and scary. ... The whole idea behind the subway 'Bad' thing is that me and my friends from New York, we're all, like, the dopiest fucking artists,... Best designers, performance artists, dancers. The dancers in the video...those are not hot L.A. people that you see in everybody's video. Those are kids who don't get cast, because they're too fucking real. ... I love the imagery of a downtown, bad-ass kid walking down the street with his buddies, grabbing a pair of pliers, and making a pair of sunglasses out of a fence on the street, ... I thought that imagery was so real, and it shows that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or how much money you have in your pocket, you’re nothing without your ideas. Your ideas are all you have. The opening of the video is me with this chain link hood and these intense glasses. They look so hard. It looks like I plied them right out of the fence and put them on my face." The video debuted on the Australian Digital Track Chart on the issue dated May 11, 2009 at number twenty-nine.